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Ernani
''Ernani'' is an operatic ''dramma lirico'' in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave, based on the 1830 play ''Hernani (drama), Hernani'' by Victor Hugo. Verdi was commissioned by the Teatro La Fenice in Venice to write an opera, but finding the right subject took some time, and the composer worked with the inexperienced Piave in shaping first one and then another drama by Hugo into an acceptable libretto. As musicologist Roger Parker notes, the composer "intervened on several important points, insisting for example that the role of Ernani be sung by a tenor (rather than by a contralto as had originally been planned).Parker, p. 71 ''Ernani'' was first performed on 9 March 1844 and it was "immensely popular, and was revived countless times during its early years". It became Verdi's most popular opera until it was superseded by ''Il trovatore'' after 1853. In 1904 it became the first opera to be recorded completely. Composition history Fol ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ernani (tenore), Figurino Di Alfredo Edel Per Ernani (1881) - Archivio Storico Ricordi ICON001147
''Ernani'' is an operatic ''dramma lirico'' in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave, based on the 1830 play ''Hernani (drama), Hernani'' by Victor Hugo. Verdi was commissioned by the Teatro La Fenice in Venice to write an opera, but finding the right subject took some time, and the composer worked with the inexperienced Piave in shaping first one and then another drama by Hugo into an acceptable libretto. As musicologist Roger Parker notes, the composer "intervened on several important points, insisting for example that the role of Ernani be sung by a tenor (rather than by a contralto as had originally been planned).Parker, p. 71 ''Ernani'' was first performed on 9 March 1844 and it was "immensely popular, and was revived countless times during its early years". It became Verdi's most popular opera until it was superseded by ''Il trovatore'' after 1853. In 1904 it became the first opera to be recorded completely. Composition history Fol ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carlo Guasco
Carlo Guasco (16 March 1813 – 13 December 1876) was a celebrated Italian operatic tenor who sang in Italian and other European opera houses from 1837 to 1853. Although he sang in many world premieres, he is most remembered today for having created the leading tenor roles in Verdi's ''I Lombardi alla prima crociata'', '' Ernani'', and '' Attila''. Biography Carlo Guasco was born in Solero, a small town in the Piedmont region of Italy. He showed an early talent for music and singing as well as mathematics, and initially trained as a surveyor at the University of Turin. He also studied piano with his cousin, Giuseppe Guasco. When the voice teacher and composer, Giacomo Panizza, heard Guasco's voice, he convinced him to give up his work as a surveyor and study with him in Milan. Guasco overcame the objections of his family to a career on the stage and began his studies with Panizza in September 1836. After only a few months, he made his stage debut at La Scala singing the relative ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi (; 9 or 10 October 1813 – 27 January 1901) was an Italian composer best known for his operas. He was born near Busseto to a provincial family of moderate means, receiving a musical education with the help of a local patron. Verdi came to dominate the Italian opera scene after the era of Gioachino Rossini, Gaetano Donizetti, and Vincenzo Bellini, whose works significantly influenced him. In his early operas, Verdi demonstrated a sympathy with the Risorgimento movement which sought the unification of Italy. He also participated briefly as an elected politician. The chorus "Va, pensiero" from his early opera ''Nabucco'' (1842), and similar choruses in later operas, were much in the spirit of the unification movement, and the composer himself became esteemed as a representative of these ideals. An intensely private person, Verdi did not seek to ingratiate himself with popular movements. As he became professionally successful, he was able ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sophie Löwe
Johanna Sophie Christiane Löwe (24 March 1815 – 29 November 1866) was a German opera soprano, active mainly in Vienna and Berlin, and a Princess of Liechtenstein by marriage. She was one of the most famous German opera singers of her time.'' Meyers Großes Konversationslexikon'', 6th edition, vol. 12, p. 747. Life and career Sophie Löwe was born on 24 March 1815 in Oldenburg, daughter of the actor Ferdinand Löwe (1787–1832). From 1831, she studied in Vienna under Giuseppe Ciccimarra. 1832 she debuted at the Kärntnertortheater. After a tour through northern Germany she got an engagement at the Berlin Court Opera in 1837. Her most prominent performances were as the title character in Gaetano Donizetti's ''Maria Padilla'' (Milan, 1841), as Elvira in Giuseppe Verdi's '' Ernani'' (Venice, 1844), and as Odabella in Verdi's '' Attila'' (Venice, 1846). She clashed with Verdi over ''Ernani'', to the point where he left Venice without paying her a customary visit. However, he ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hernani (drama)
''Hernani'' (full title: ''Hernani, ou l'Honneur Castillan'') is a drama in rhyming alexandrines by the French romantic author Victor Hugo. The title originates from Hernani, a Spanish town in the Southern Basque Country, where Hugo's mother and her three children stopped on their way to General Hugo's place of residence. The play was given its premiere on 25 February 1830 by the Comédie-Française in Paris. Today, it is more remembered for the demonstrations which accompanied the first performance and for being the inspiration for Giuseppe Verdi's opera ''Ernani'' than it is for its own merits. Hugo had enlisted the support of fellow Romanticists such as Hector Berlioz and Théophile Gautier to combat the opposition of Classicists who recognised the play as a direct attack on their values. ''Hernani'' is used to describe the magnitude and elegance of Prince Prospero's masquerade in Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Masque of the Red Death". Gillenormand in ''Les Misérables ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Francesco Maria Piave
Francesco Maria Piave (18 May 18105 March 1876) was an Italian opera librettist who was born in Murano in the lagoon of Venice, during the brief Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy. Career Piave's career spanned over twenty years working with many of the significant composers of his day, including Giovanni Pacini (four librettos), Saverio Mercadante (at least one), Federico Ricci, and even one for Michael Balfe. He is most well known as Giuseppe Verdi's librettist, for whom he was to write 10 librettos, the most well-known being those for ''Rigoletto'' and ''La traviata''. But Piave was not only a librettist: he was a journalist and translator in addition to being the resident poet and stage manager at La Fenice in Venice where he first encountered Verdi. Later, Verdi was helpful in securing him the same position at La Scala in Milan.Baldini 1970, pp. 70 - 74 His expertise as a stage manager and his tact as a negotiator served Verdi very well, but the composer bullied him mercilessly ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Libretto
A libretto (Italian for "booklet") is the text used in, or intended for, an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata or Musical theatre, musical. The term ''libretto'' is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as the Mass (liturgy), Mass, requiem and sacred cantata, or the story line of a ballet. ''Libretto'' (; plural ''libretti'' ), from Italian, is the diminutive of the word ''wiktionary:libro#Italian, libro'' ("book"). Sometimes other-language equivalents are used for libretti in that language, ''livret'' for French works, ''Textbuch'' for German and ''libreto'' for Spanish. A libretto is distinct from a synopsis or scenario of the plot, in that the libretto contains all the words and stage directions, while a synopsis summarizes the plot. Some ballet historians also use the word ''libretto'' to refer to the 15 to 40 page books which were on sale to 19th century ballet audiences in Paris and contained a ve ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Il Corsaro
''Il corsaro'' (''The Corsair'') is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi, from a libretto by Francesco Maria Piave, based on Lord Byron's 1814 poem ''The Corsair''. The first performance was given at the Teatro Grande in Trieste on 25 October 1848. Composition history The composer expressed interest in Byron's poem ''The Corsair'' (along with ''The Two Foscari'' and others) as early as 1844 when he was planning an opera for Venice, but a suitable baritone was not available.Budden, pp. 363 – 366 In 1845, (before it was determined that ''I masnadieri'' was to be the opera presented in London), the composer had contracted with the Milanese publisher, Francesco Lucca, for three operas, including ''Attila'' and one for London. Three things prevented it from being ''I masnadieri'' at that time: firstly, Verdi's illness postponed any opera for London for almost a year; secondly, he demanded that the work be ''Il corsaro'' and that it be written by Piave, who had begun work; and, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Donizetti
Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti (29 November 1797 – 8 April 1848) was an Italian composer, best known for his almost 70 operas. Along with Gioachino Rossini and Vincenzo Bellini, he was a leading composer of the '' bel canto'' opera style during the first half of the nineteenth century and a probable influence on other composers such as Giuseppe Verdi. Donizetti was born in Bergamo in Lombardy. At an early age he was taken up by Simon Mayr who enrolled him with a full scholarship in a school which he had set up. There he received detailed musical training. Mayr was instrumental in obtaining a place for Donizetti at the Bologna Academy, where, at the age of 19, he wrote his first one-act opera, the comedy ''Il Pigmalione'', which may never have been performed during his lifetime. An offer in 1822 from Domenico Barbaja, the impresario of the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples, which followed the composer's ninth opera, led to his move to Naples and his residency there until productio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Teatro La Fenice
Teatro La Fenice (, "The Phoenix") is an opera house in Venice, Italy. It is one of "the most famous and renowned landmarks in the history of Italian theatre" and in the history of opera as a whole. Especially in the 19th century, La Fenice became the site of many famous operatic premieres at which the works of several of the four major bel canto era composers – Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, Verdi – were performed. Its name reflects its role in permitting an opera company to "rise from the ashes" despite losing the use of three theatres to fire, the first in 1774 after the city's leading house was destroyed and rebuilt but not opened until 1792; the second fire came in 1836, but rebuilding was completed within a year. However, the third fire was the result of arson. It destroyed the house in 1996 leaving only the exterior walls, but it was rebuilt and re-opened in November 2004. In order to celebrate this event the tradition of the Venice New Year's Concert started. Histor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Il Trovatore
''Il trovatore'' ('The Troubadour') is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto largely written by Salvadore Cammarano, based on the play ''El trovador'' (1836) by Antonio García Gutiérrez. It was García Gutiérrez's most successful play, one which Verdi scholar Julian Budden describes as "a high flown, sprawling melodrama flamboyantly defiant of the Aristotelian unities, packed with all manner of fantastic and bizarre incident." The premiere took place at the Teatro Apollo in Rome on 19 January 1853, where it "began a victorious march throughout the operatic world," a success due to Verdi's work over the previous three years. It began with his January 1850 approach to Cammarano with the idea of ''Il trovatore''. There followed, slowly and with interruptions, the preparation of the libretto, first by Cammarano until his death in mid-1852 and then with the young librettist Leone Emanuele Bardare, which gave the composer the opportunity to propose signifi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Antonio Selva
Antonio Selva (1824 - September 1889) was an Italian operatic bass who had an active international career from the 1840s through the 1870s. He was particularly associated with the works of Giuseppe Verdi. Life and career Born with the name Antonio Scremin in Padua, Selva was the brother of actor Giambattista Scremin. He originally trained to be an organ builder under Angelo Agostini. Angelo's father, the voice teacher Lorenzo Agostini, discovered his beautiful natural singing voice and began training him for an opera career. He made his professional opera debut in 1842 in one of the smaller theatre's in his home town as Zaccaria in Giuseppe Verdi's ''Nabucco''. He was also active as a member of the opera chorus at La Fenice while a teenager. At the age of 19, he was chosen by Verdi to portray what was written as the comprimario role of de Silva in the world premiere of the composer's ''Ernani'' at La Fenice on 9 March 1844. It as a last minute replacement for a singer who foun ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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